Code: Refigured
by Shimmerbreeze
Summary: Our heroes have graduated and started moving on with their lives. They believed they had destroyed just enough of the factory to keep anyone out, not to mention they believed X.A.N.A to have been deleted. A new group of kids at Kadic happen to stumblr upon the supercomputer. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1

_**Code: Refigured**_

 _ **~A Code Lyoko Story based off a roleplay~**_

 **Characters: Karina ~Never Forget~**

 **Erick**

 **Daniel**

 **~Chapter 1: Adventures~**

Karina sighed and stood in front of the school gates, glaring half-heartedly in the direction that her parent's car had driven off. They had been ecstatic, and couldn't wait to drop her off so that they could go off and gallivant around the world. It had been like this last year too, Karina had been dropped off in front of Kadic Academy, left to her own devices, while her parents, both travel junkies, went off and got to do cool things. What did it matter to them that their daughter had no friends... What did it matter to them that, instead of studying, their daughter explored every inch of Kadic, school and surrounding grounds. The only place she hadn't touched were the woods and the Forbidden Factory. At least, that's what she called it. She named it thus because at the beginning of every school year, Mr. Delmas warned kids not to go near it. Not that anyone could get anywhere near it, there was a fence blocking it off from the road. _Yeah... She'd checked_. If someone told her not to go near it, that just made her want to get closer.

Karina hoisted her bags higher up on her shoulders and made her way through the crowd to her dorm room. Home for the year... She sighed again as she pushed open the slightly cracked door, her roommate was already there, putting her things away. They nodded at each other and Karina cursed her being shy once more. She cursed her being OCD too, once she saw the wreckage that was her roommate's side of the room. She shuddered as she started putting her things away. Thirty minutes later, everything was just as she wanted it, and her roommate was long gone. No doubt to track down her friends. Friends... Karina sighed and picked up her book bag, empty except for the five folders and her laptop. She quickly checked her watch and hurried to the beginning of school orientation. Required for every student, skipping resulted in detention.

She slipped into the crowd easily, being invisible to most people, not really invisible, though she might as well be from the amount of people that payed her any mind. That once again came from her being shy and staying quiet. She liked it that way, most of the time. Though she had to admit, having some partners in crime would be great. She smiled slightly upon entering the Auditorium, taking a seat in the back. The students were loud and restless when Mr. Delmas finally took the stage and stood at the podium. He gave the usual warnings about the standards that were expected of the students. Bullying was not acceptable and all school rules were to be upheld. Anyone found to be breaking them would be expelled. His last warning was about the factory.

"No students are to be found anywhere near the abandoned factory. If anyone is caught there, they will be given detention and expulsion will be pending, depending on the student's records," Mr. Delmas said. Karina snorted softly, making a boy sitting in front of her turn around to look at her funnily. She blushed and looked down at her hands until he turned back around. When everyone was finally released to go to their first class, she hurried towards hers.

Chemistry... Ugh, she was a failure at science. History, she liked history, preferred it really. She was the first one in class and took her usual seat at the back. Thank god for first days at school, she thought. Today they would be doing nothing more than getting their books and class syllabus. Once that was done, they were able to talk to their friends, most people, if they were boarders, hadn't seen each other since last year and couldn't wait to catch up. Conversations held in quiet French, that is what Karina heard in the hallway on the way to her next class. History, thankfully. She tried pushing past people as quickly as was possible, thus didn't pay attention to the boy that ran into her, causing her Chemistry things to fall from her hands and scatter.

"Watch where you're going!" She hissed looking up at the boy from where she sat on the ground. He blinked at her and hurried to help her gather her things.

"I'm sorry," he said handing her Chemistry book back. "I'm a total klutz." She accepted her book and the outstretched hand and brushed off any dirt she had on her pants.

"It's fine," Karina said quietly, they stood there awkwardly for a few moments before she nodded at the open door of the History classroom. "Are you going in?" She asked.

"Nope, I've got art," the boy said. He started walking off. "Sorry again!" He called before rounding the corner. Karina huffed and walked into the classroom.

The teacher of this class was notorious for assigned seats, so she walked around looking for her seat. She was next to a window, she noted happily. So, History went the same as Chemistry had, the teacher had passed out the books then had spoken a little bit on how the class would go on as the year went on, and then the class was dismissed to converse amongst themselves for the rest of the time. They didn't make it through the whole class period this time however, but were interrupted by the fire alarm going off.

Karina slapped her hands over her ears as the class was led outside to the soccer field. "STAY WITH YOUR CLASS!" Teachers kept yelling, trying to regain control over the students. She stood among her classmates as other classes joined theirs. Another science teacher, an older German man yelled something over the ringing and ran back towards the school.

"Translation: Don't go anywhere," a voice from somewhere behind her said loudly. Whoever said it evoked loud laughing and snorts from students around him. Karina rolled her eyes and watched as Mrs. Hertz hurried off to stop a group of students from goofing off. She sighed and took the time to look around. She easily identified the boy whom she'd run into earlier and then beyond him, there was a kid leaving the field. Ahh… An adventure opportunity. She quietly made her way through the crowd, skillfully avoiding teachers, until she hit the edge. She backed up slowly before turning and walking off quickly, following the boy. She had almost reached the forest's edge when a voice behind her startled her.

"What's going on?" It was the boy from earlier. He matched her pace and followed her deeper into the forest. Karina simply shrugged and glared at him for a moment. Then she stepped up her own pace to try and catch up with the other boy. He was nowhere to be found. _'Where could he have—'_ her thought was cut short by a soft metal clang. She smiled in triumph and followed the noise, hoping the boy with her was keeping up. If she was correct, the noise should have been the manhole.

"Come on no-name!" Karina called, speaking louder than she had since coming to Kadic Academy. She opened up the manhole and scrunched her nose up at the smell. Why on earth would anyone willingly go down there…? She nearly gagged as she leaned over it. She liked to adventure and explore, but she usually cut those adventure off at the sewers. _'Oh well.'_ She thought, she shoved the cover off all the way and jumped down, forgoing the ladder, she landed lightly on her feet. Then she looked up to see the boy looking down at her. "You coming?" She asked.

"Yeah," he said, he used the ladder, and was soon standing next to her. Together they made their way through the tunnels. Karina would shudder every now and then at the smell but the boy next to her remained stoic, even if his face showed slight disgust. "My name is Daniel by the way," he said eventually.

"Karina," she said not fully looking at him, but rather at the ground. "Call me whatever you like, I don't really have any friends so…" She shrugged and stopped to bend down. Age old scuff marks littered the ground. Who knew how long they'd been there, but it was obvious someone used to come here, and often. "Tire marks…" She said softly to herself. Likely from skates or something of that sort. "Come on," she said standing up. "I think he went this way." She led them forward instead of to the right, where the tunnel branched off.

"Hey, I'm over here!" A voice called from ahead of them. A flashlight beam caught both Karina and Daniel in the face.

"Hey shut that thing off," Daniel said cringing slightly as he threw up an arm to block the light. Karina blinked a few times until her eyes readjusted. She was quite put out at being caught. She must be losing her touch.

"Sorry," the boy in front of them turned the flashlight off.

"What are you doing in the sewers?" Karina asked him softly. She was quite curious as to why he would come down here. The smell was horrid, and she was certain she'd never get it out of her clothes or hair.

"Well, class will officially be over, as well as our first day of school, soon and I was eager to get something done, so I thought to myself "hey why not explore a little". So exploring I went," he said casually, as if it was nothing unusual. The park out there was nice, but it didn't have the… excitement that I was looking for. I saw the manhole and now here I am! A boy in the sewers. I could be smuggling illegal contraband, or planning a crime. But I'm not." He winked at Karina and leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets. "The real question however is, what are you two doing down here? I mean, who follows a random guy into the sewers? It's kinda weird." Karina blushed a fierce shade of red, this boy had beat her at her own game it would seem. She waited a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"Well… I saw you leaving the soccer field, and I do like a good adventure myself. So I followed you, and he," she jerked a thumb at Daniel, who was looking around. "Followed me." She had talked more today than she had in almost two years. "I have explored the school from top to bottom, but never once have I come down here. Too stinky."

Daniel laughed a bit, "I dunno, nothing else was going on. I just wanted to see what you were doing!" He continued on down the path a little looking around more. Karina watched as he disappeared inside a door, before hearing him yell. "Hey guys you might want to come here and look at this!" Karina and Erick followed him into the room, Karina paused slightly when she saw that Daniel was holding a knife in one hand.

"You have a knife?" Erick asked, looking at the boy skeptically, a hand twitching towards one of his own pockets. The room itself wasn't very impressive; rusted pipes ran along the walls, water was dripping from a crack in the ceiling and into a little puddle on the floor, mildew colored the corners of the room a sickening green-black. In the center of the room was an old rusty ladder that lead to another manhole- a manhole apparently left off-kilter after its last use which, judging by the dirt, rust flakes, and spider webs, was many years ago. Daniel stowed his knife in the inside pocket of his jacket after seeing the looks on their faces. "My name is Erick by the way." He said offhandedly as he inspected the slightly ajar manhole above him. "If its adventure you wanted, we certainly found it. So, how long have you two been at the school? It's my first year."

"The names Daniel, you can call me Dan though," Daniel said. He glanced over at the other two before walking over to the rusty ladder, looking up. "Ew, spider webs," he muttered looking around. He grabbed a short, rusty pipe and started knocking them down. He raised an eyebrow as he felt a strange presence, nothing ominous, but like someone was here, not recently, but from long ago... "Oh, it's my first year here too."

"My name is Karina," Karina said moving fully into the room. She took her jacket off and tied it around her waist. No use getting it too dirty. It would bring in too many questions with whoever her roommate would be this year. Besides, the mess in the place was starting to set off her inner OCD alarms. She shuddered slightly. "This is my second year at Kadic. I explored everything on the school grounds last year in between classes and holidays and stuff," she said, shaking her head slightly.

"Nice to meet ya," Erick said nodding at them. He watched as Karina walked over to the ladder and stepped onto the bottom rung and jumped up and down slightly, testing it.

"Are we gonna go see what's up there then?" She asked turning to the others, her green eyes full of excitement. She stepped down as Erick walked forward and grabbed onto the ladder, looking up.

"Yeah. I'll go up first, make sure the rungs don't give. It'd suck to get halfway up and then have a rung fall out of the wall once you put your weight on it." He announced even as he tugged on the rung he had grabbed, picked out two more at neck and chest level, and tugged on them too. The three seemed sturdy enough. He gave a lower one a good kick and it held "Alright. If you'll excuse me..." His voice trailed off slightly as he took hold of a rung and stepped up onto another. He stood there for a moment to make sure he had his footing correct and, when satisfied, started up the precarious ladder one rung at a time, testing each hand hold before pulling himself up higher. Karina watched, hoping that the rungs would hold, not wanting one of her new friends to come crashing to his death. Once he reached the top he wrapped one arm around the top rung and used his other to push against the cover. "Let's pop this puppy open," he said loud enough for the others to hear. His first few attempts began to make them all think that the cover was stuck and they'd just have to go back to school, but then Erick gave a massive heave and the cover loosened, showering the boy with dirt and rust. He kept pushing until he could reach his fingers around the edge and he carefully pushed it up and over before disappearing through it.

"Well?" Daniel called up after a moment.

"What do you know, it does lead the middle of the road. Kinda," He laughed sticking his head back down. Karina grabbed onto the ladder to climb up next.

"Look away," she told Daniel. She didn't want him peeking up her skirt. She followed Erick, shuddering at the feel of the dirt and rust on her hands as she climbed up the ladder. "Well isn't that a relief," she said dryly. Coming up to stand next to him. She looked around. "No semis yet, you might get your wish." She smirked. She turned around to see the old factory, no fence in between them. . "That's been abandoned for years, the teachers have told us about it." She said, she cocked her head slightly and gathered her hair up, putting it in a neat ponytail. "We aren't supposed to be here. We could be expelled if we get caught." She smiled and looked at Erick and Daniel, who had just popped up out of the tunnel. "Anyone going to join me in exploring it?" She asked. She frowned down at the dirt on her hands. _Maybe I could wipe it off on Daniel_ , she thought.

"Expelled? Really?" Erick paused, bringing his grimy hand to his chin in mock thoughtfulness, "Welp! I didn't come here to stick with the rules now did I?" He raised and eyebrow, a playful grin on his face, "Let's go!" With that he turned and ran the rest of the way across the bridge, stopping only to open one of the old, rusty-hinged doors before darting inside. "This place is awesome!" He laughed as he took a brief look of the immediate area. He was standing on a 2nd-floor catwalk, the stairs of which had long since collapsed at the opposite end of the long building. The bottom floor was a giant concrete slab covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust and littered with rusty machine parts, piles of old chain, tools, and stacks of various steel rods, now covered with the rust from decades of exposure to the elements. Karina and Daniel followed him at a slightly slower pace, looking around curiously.

Chains dangled from the ceiling, still attached to pulleys and rails. The safety rail on the catwalk was bent outward as if something had run through it, and was falling down in many places. The catwalk itself was worse for wear, large holes had appeared in it over the years and there was no guarantee that any given place could support human weight. Dead rats on the floor below a few such holes, indicating where the catwalk was no longer able to support any weight at all, as the rodents had found out. Karina gulped and shivered slightly. Erick got a running start and jumped, latching onto one of the chains, riding it all the way to the ground, landing with a puff of dirt and dust.

"Erick!" Karina yelled, her eyes wide. Beside her Daniel put headphones in his ears, techno music blaring as he observed Erick's landing. He couldn't move forward to follow him, he was frozen, even if he wanted to move, he wouldn't be able to. Karina had moved back and was running forward as well, but skidded to a halt when she saw Daniel freeze. She faltered, and backed up. She stared at the boy and waved her hand in front of his face, before gently removing the headphones in his ears. "Are you alright?" She asked quietly. Fear of heights she deducted, if only because of how high up they were, or maybe fear of falling. She glanced down to see Erick standing below them. "I can go before you and then Erick and I will be able to catch you if you fall," she said. Hoping that it would work because she was itching to get down there and explore more. Dirty place or not... dead rats or not. She shivered thinking about the nasty creatures.

"No! No, I'm fine," Daniel assured the girl. "I'm just a bit unsure about if the chain will be able to support me..." Daniel observed Erick, who had roughly the same build as him, Daniel shook his head, "Well, no time like the present, a hop." Daniel ran towards the chain, "Skip!" he clutched the chain. "And a jump!" he felt the surprisingly sturdy chain fully support him, and eventually met the ground. Daniel stumbled a bit and regained his balance, he dusted the rust off of his hands, "I swear, if I get freaking tetanus today..." he watched the chain slowly reset, the chain met the end of the line with a clunk. Daniel said, half-yelling, "Alright! It's your turn!" Karina smirked and leaped forward, catching onto the chain and sliding down it.

"No problem right?" She said hopping a few times to regain her balance. She grimaced slightly at the pain in her hands, the chains were hard and definitely didn't feel too good. "That was actually quite fun." She looked around and walked in a small circle. The main floor was a disaster, chunks of stone and debris all over the place. "This place is pretty cool," she said softly. "Very dirty..." she shivered. "And cluttered, and unorganized..." She shook her head at the state of the old factory. "But cool nonetheless." She walked around, looking behind objects when she heard Daniel call to them quietly. She looked over to see him standing near an old elevator shaft.

"Guys, there's a light coming from a room below us," he said when Karina and Erick had gathered around him. Karina bit her lip and looked down the shaft, careful not to lean too far down, a fall from this height would mean certain death.

"Ummm..." Karina hummed lightly and looked torn between wanting to find out who or what was down the elevator shaft, and not wanting to be found and expelled. "What should we do?" She asked quietly, looking at them.

Daniel gripped his knife in his pocket, "I dunno, the light was just flickering, and these lights are way too old to be still working properly. I could be either a malfunctioning light, or someone with a screwed up flashlight, either way, we won't find out until we go down there." Dan grabbed hold of the steel wire, "You guys coming, or what?" Daniel smiled adventurously, he was shaking the wire he had hold of out of impatience. Karina sighed and looked back at Erick before moving Daniel out of the way and grabbing the wire.

"Don't even tempt me like that again." She said casually. _Damn me and my curiosity_ , she thought. She took a deep breath before jumping down the shaft, immediately feeling the effects on her hands. Her feet hit metal, the top of the elevator she assumed and she clenched her fists together. Next time she would bring gloves, that definitely hadn't been her smartest move, and she was sure she'd feel the effects of that ride for days. "Cover your hands guys!" She called up.

Daniel pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, he grabbed the wire firmly and slid down. Once he touched down, he crouched slightly, as if ready for a potential battle... After a few moments, he walked back over to the opening, "Hey Erick! Ya comin'?" He called up the shaft.

"Yeah, I'm coming! Sorry for spacing out like that, I have a bad habit of daydreaming," the answer came a moment later. "It was my idea to come here, so it's my job to check out the sketchy things, right?" He asked, half hoping either of the two to disagree with him. He walked back to the shaft and peered over the edge again. The four beams in the corners were not the normal I-beams used for heavy duty support, but the kind made up of two thinner beams with steel slats crisscrossing between- he had long since forgotten the name. "Well, here goes..." He mumbled rather reluctantly as he took several steps back. He popped his knuckles and, mustering his courage, ran forward and leaped into the shaft. Erick dropped several feet before he caught hold of one of the slats on the back left corner of the shaft.

"Oh god," Karina muttered watching him in the dim light. "He's trying to come down the hard way." She watched in fear, hoping that he didn't fall, witnessing a death was not on her agenda for the day. Erick clung to the beam for dear life for almost a minute before he opened his eyes- though he didn't recall closing them to begin with- and looking around. A sharp, almost sarcastic laugh escaped his mouth when he spotted the old service ladder on the opposite side of the shaft. It was carved directly into the concrete wall of the shaft and had apparently been hidden from their view by a small overhang on the platform above.

"Hey guys, guess what?" He called, "There's a friggin' ladder down here!" That was his way of venting at the moment- it's quite hard to do much else when you're clinging to a steel beam some thirty feet off the ground and don't have anime physics to help you out.

"You've got to be kidding me," Karina said narrowing her eyes at Daniel. She blamed him for not seeing the ladder. She growled lowly and located the ladder, it was less than three feet from them. "Next time, can someone please use a brain?" She snapped. "They are there for a reason."

"Hey, if you think you're so smart. Why didn't you see it?" He shook his head, snapping himself out of the dull anger, he looked down the ruinous hallway. "This place has definitely seen better days..." he looked up and saw a dying industrial light. It flickered for a few moments, and then fizzled out. "Well, at least no one else was down here..." His fingers traced the wall as he walked down the hall, glancing out at the tainted and distorted windows. Karina and Erick followed him, Karina still fuming about the ladder and Erick still shaking from climbing down the hard way. They came upon a strange looking door, it had several rusted gears on it, and didn't look like it was going to move anytime soon. Despite their assumption, Daniel tried to move the massive gate, nothing. The gate stood stalwart over him. "MOVE YOU PIECE OF CRAP!" he yelled in frustration, and kicked the door, a large creaking noise erupted from the door, Dan watched as the door fell off of its rusted hinges. Daniel was shocked, to say the least, "Either I'm freakishly strong, or that door was just really, really weak..." He looked into the room that laid before him, four strange looking tubes, which looked like they were designed to contain something.

"I'm willing to go with the latter," Karina muttered continuing on. She saw a small opening in the floor, another ladder leading down was there, and opposite them was another opening, this time in the ceiling.

"Let's go with the latter theory." Erick agreed, giving Daniel a pat on the shoulder as he walked into the room. Karina climbed down the ladder into the room below them, seeing Erick climb the ladder into the room above them. She jumped down and turned to see a giant pile of debris on the floor. Debris littered the rest of the room as well, and the doors to the elevator shaft seem to have been forcibly removed, by what Karina didn't think she wanted to know. They heard Daniel moving around above them and continued to look around. This seemed to be the final floor of the building, as the wrecked remains of the elevator were facing them.

"What was in the room above the strange pods?" Karina asked, wrinkling her nose at the horrible state once more.

"Strange looking monitor type thing," Erick muttered. He turned his attention to the pile of rubble. There were no holes in the ceiling, so that ruled out falling debris, and it was on the other end of the room, so the doors couldn't have simply fallen over from erosion. Yet there it was, a pile of scrap metal, bricks, severed cables, and the sliding doors and an elevator. "That rubble didn't get there by chance. It was put there." Erick concluded aloud, "Someone was trying to hide something." He grabbed a rusty piece of pipe roughly the size of a baseball bat and walked up to the pile. Using the pipe as a lever, he shoved the large doors aside and knocked several larger pieces of scrap away, dissipating the pile bit by bit until it was small enough to clear away with his foot. He pushed aside the rest of the junk with his foot only to find another trap door, this one much narrower than the first. He moved to lift the latch but saw that it was padlocked. "Padlocks? Seriously? Armatures." He scoffed as he struck the lock like a golf ball with his pipe. The lock snapped in two and the pieces hit the wall. "Bada-boom." Erick smirked and threw open the trapdoor. A cloud of dust billowed forth like smoke from the round opening and further choked the air. Erick covered his mouth with the collar of his shirt and coughed a little while he waited for the dust to settle a bit. Karina hid her face in her arm and coughed slightly.

"I could have picked the lock," she muttered lifting her face once the dust settled. Erick shined his flashlight down into the hole. It was another tunnel with another ladder going down it. But this one was different. Aside from the dust, it looked brand new. The tiles on the wall were crisp yellow-orange in color and even a little bit reflective and the rungs of the ladder were smooth, silver, and shiny.

"Well," Erick started, "That's not odd at all. I wonder what was so important down there..." He looked into the hole for a few moments longer before standing back up."Welp!" He declared, "There is only one way to find out!" Then he quickly stepped into the hole, taking hold of the cold ladder rungs as he descended. "If I'm not back in two minutes, I'm dead." He called. "If I start screaming like a madman and then suddenly stop, then there's some kind of terrible monster down here and I've been torn limb from limb!" He added. Then the thought of getting torn limb from limb by anything echoed in his head as gruesome images flashed before his mind's eye and he shivered a little as a chill ran down his spine. Karina shivered as well, and jumped slightly when Daniel appeared beside her. "Guys! You've gotta check this out!" Erick's voice barely reached them. Daniel and Karina looked at each other and shrugged.

Karina went down the ladder first, Daniel following behind her closely. There was no light at all, except from Erick's flashlight. The room around them was circular with tiled walls and a concrete ceiling and was smaller than the other two by several feet in diameter. There was a ring of concrete at the base of the walls that extended about four feet and covered the circumference of the room. Glass covered the rest of the floor in the middle, though it was too dusty to see what was beneath, and short, black column stood dead center.

"It's freezing down here," Karina muttered slipping her jacket back on. Worrying about getting it dirty was now the furthest thing from her mind as Erick knocked on the top of the column with his fist. It rang slightly, so it must be made of metal. There came a click from within the pillar and it began to hum softly as a faint orange light flickered to life on one side. It was just a light shining from behind a translucent plastic panel with a pattern of metal overlaid on it. He assumed it was the insignia of the company that had made it, but he had never seen anything like it before. It was an eye or target, depending on how one looked at it, with on "eyelash" on top and three on the bottom.

"Hey, did you guys try the monitor thing two floors up?" Daniel asked suddenly.

"Haven't seen it yet," Karina muttered staring at the floor.

"I tried it. There's no power. But I suspect this thingamajig may have something to do with it." Erick answered, not turning from the tall cylinder at the bottom level. Other than the strange symbol on its side and its conspicuous location, there was one more oddity about it: It was warm to the touch. He ran his hand over the insignia and accidentally pushed the plate on which it was carved. The cylinder hissed and the panel moved inwards a little before sinking down into the side. Once the panel was out of the way, another panel, this one covered with circuit boards and small lights, moved forward. Dominating the new panel was a sturdy-looking lever, similar to those used on industrial-sized breaker boxes. "Somehow, I've got a bad feeling about this thing..." Erick said, hesitant to flip the switch. "But," He started again and grabbed the handle of the lever, "It certainly couldn't hurt to give it a spin!" He lifted up on the lever with a grunt. It groaned and creaked as it slowly moved up and then snapped into place, nearly smashing Erick's fingers against the back of the panel.

Suddenly, the air was alive with the humming, clicking, beeping, and whirring of a great machine. Lights flashed on the cylinder's top and ran down its sides and behind the glass. For a moment, the entire glass floor seemed to glow before it began to shake violently. It was moving! Several smooth cracks appeared in the surface of the glass and widened as it receded into the concrete portion of the floor. Evaporated coolant and steam shot out of the cracks and the cylinder began to slowly rotate, rising as it went and taking the tech hidden beneath the glass with it. Bright lights came to life and illuminated the three mysterious rooms down at the bottom of the abandoned factory. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking stopped with a thud as the last few pieces fell into place. The cloud of steam, dust, and coolant settled once again on the floor and revealed a machine right out of any scientist's dreams- or nightmares. It was a computer. More immense in size and greater in power than any other in existence. Karina let out a breath of excitement.

"It's a computer," she breathed. She loved technology, lived for it really. She wanted to be a professional coder when she graduated. Even checking out MIT in America. The little cylinder now stood as the pinnacle of the ominous tower of tech and machinery that made up the computer itself. At the top of the cylinder, seeming to glare down at the three students before it, was the "eye". That mysterious, gleaming eye that the three students, and a few others, would soon come to hate with a passion as fierce as fire.

 _ ***S***_

 _ **Welp, that's it for this time. Let me tell you XD Going back and finding all the posts to get this stuff wasn't fun and FeralFront kept going down on me… Okay that sounds wrong, but for real.**_

 _ **Anyway, I didn't write this on my own, and Daniel and Erick are not my characters, so I would like to thank Roakal and Faros for their amazing contribution, and I will gladly call them co-authors. They really are amazing, and I hope we go far with our roleplay and story ;) (Others come later an they will get their due as well. I promise.)**_

 _ **Shimmerz (Never Forget)**_


	2. Chapter 2

_***Code: Refigured***_

 _ **Here is Chapter two! Hope you all enjoy this one as well.**_

 _ ***S***_

 **Chapter 2: Lyoko and X.A.N.A**

"Guys, I think I found the power button." Erick gulped, gawking up at the looming tower of raw technology. Karina rolled her eyes slightly and Daniel looked slightly pale. Karina shivered at the sight of the computer, even though it was no longer cold in the room. The computer had to be using a lot of energy to be producing as much heat as it was. Yet, it was still a magnificent sight, if not slightly scary. Why was it in an old, run down factory?

"Guys, maybe we shouldn't touch it anymore," she said softly. "What if it's like some super-secret government thing. I mean..." She trailed off, walking around the computer. "Who else would have such a large computer?" She marveled in how high-tech this computer worked, and it looked to be in perfect condition despite its dismal home.

Daniel laughed for a moment, "C'mon, this thing can't be government issue." He wrapped the sleeve of his shirt around his hand, and tapped the surface of the device, "Weird... This thing was inactive for God knows how long, and now it's blazing hot." Daniel remarked "This thing must've been pretty well preserved for it to just get up and get going..." Daniel climbed back up back into the room where the computer console was. The console shook for a moment, and beamed to life. Daniel walked into the room and looked at the screen. It was like any normal pc, except it was hooked up to a small nuclear reactor under an abandoned factory. Karina followed him with Erick close behind. The pods in the room had opened up and were glowing, Karina looked at the wearily while waiting for Erick to climb up to the monitor room.

Daniel was sitting in a large chair in front of a monitor. Dirt had gathered all about the steel tile floor and mold formed in the cracks between tiles. A rat squeaked from a corner and skittered out of sight. In the center of the room was a monitor, keyboard, and seat all attached to a sturdy arm that ran to a large dome-like table. Karina frowned as she looked around. Something was off here. The cables were old and worn, but the monitor in the other room had looked newish.

"Something is off," she said softly, turning in a circle, observing the room around her. Behind her Daniel cursed as he again unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the computer.

"Yeah... This place has been abandoned since pagers were invented, but this tech is way ahead of our time." Erick agreed, also getting an uneasy feeling about the facility. Daniel finally drug out a laptop, Karina just now realizing that both boys had their schoolbags with them. She shifted her own, forgetting that she'd had it. She watched as the boy connected the laptop to the bigger monitor by a USB cable.

"Well, one thing's for sure, this was made before 2000." Daniel ran a simple hacking program, and saw in blaring red on the old console ACCESS DENIED. "What?" Daniel said in surprise. "Well, let's see if this'll crack it..." Daniel ran a more advanced program. ACCESS DENIED "Urgh... Well, whoever made the firewall on here was pretty serious about it not being hacked while he wasn't around..." Daniel cracked his knuckles, "Well, time to play." Karina rolled her eyes and grabbed the laptop from him.

"Generic hacking programs will ruin something on the computer," she muttered. "Besides, something on here will possibly put a virus on this one, and we want to leave as little evidence that we were here as possible." She unhooked the laptop from the monitor and motioned for Daniel to move. He did so grudgingly, glaring at her. She sat down and started typing. Each time the words "ACCESS DENIED" popped up on the screen Daniel's smirk grew, but Karina ignored him and typed a few lines of code into it and finally "ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME JEREMY." She sat back and smiled.

"Who the heck is Jeremy?" Daniel asked, he and Erick were looking over her shoulder. A small window opened up, showing several different character models, "Weird. All of that to just protect a few 3D character designs? Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, Aelita, and William. Quite the strange assortment of names..." He said as Karina hovered over them all.

"I guess they were the last people to use it..?" Erick thought out loud, looking at the 3D models on the screen. They each had a list of stats, what appeared to be abilities, and a few other lines of information. "It's weird, though." Erick said, scratching the back of his head, "If these models say anything, the people couldn't have been any older than us. But how on earth could a bunch of kids have made such a massive machine?" Karina turned to watch as he started pacing. "On top of that, what are those big pods over there for? They certainly aren't for gasoline or any other fuel, or else they'd wouldn't have been moved like that. And who's this Jeremy guy? Is he the one who made this?" Erick was now pacing back and forth between the console and the pods, nearly pulling his hair out as he tried to process the information and wrap his mind around it. But how could he? It's not like he'd ever found a secret computer or anything underground before. Karina and Daniel looked at each other and then back at Erick.

"But what if Karina is right?" Now he was just plain rambling to himself. "That's the only logical solution... There's no civilian organization out there that's got this level of technology. And crack my back if its aliens that made it! But how did high schoolers get their hands on it?" Karina coughed slightly, the boy certainly looked like he was going through an internal debate. Suddenly he looked up and threw a fist in the air. His face lifted towards the ceiling. He stood there for several minutes.

"Um, dude?" Daniel said walking over to him, leaving Karina alone at the monitor.

"Er, what I mean is that I think I know what all this is." He said rather sheepishly, feeling quite foolish and embarrassed. "See, I like reading about tall tales and local legends like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. And no, I don't believe in them, I just like to see how wild people's imaginations are, that's all. Anyways, since I was coming to France, I thought I'd look up some legends and folk tales involving the area and found one popular- not to mention quite recent, one call The Secret of Kadic." He tried to explain, "I thought it was just a coincidence that there was a legend with the same name as my new school but I soon learned that it was about Kadic Academy. I thought it was too far-fetched and unsubstantiated to be true, just like all the others."

"Well, there are many legends about Kadic," Karina said. "Giant Teddy Bears, technology going crazy, doubles of people, hornet attacks," she said listing them off on her fingers. "The list could go on really, but it's all just myth."

"But I was wrong!" Erick said to her. Have you heard the legend?" Daniel shook his head but Karina nodded. "Basically, the legend goes like this: Four students from Kadic Academy explore an abandoned factory and find within it a supercomputer! They turn it on, not knowing the consequences, and awaken the computer's corrupted AI. The AI then proceeds to use its connection to electronics to seize control of things in order to kill the students. If it succeeded, then it would have full control of every electronic device in the world and no one would be able to stop it, for it had sat hidden and forgotten for years. The kids take up arms against it and fight the AI in a digital world within the computer itself. They were able to overcome the AI and shut down the computer. In order to keep their secret, they swore an oath of silence and went their separate ways. Some say that one or two of them are at this school to this very day. Call me crazy, but I think we may have found the computer."

"Erick, if that legend has any truth to it, we need to shut this down NOW!" Daniel yelled aloud. He had started to panic slightly half-way through his story.

"But it's just that, a legend," Karina said. She realized where she was and bit her lip and stayed silent for a moment. "Well I guess it isn't, but it was because of that legend that the Factory was made forbidden, some kid broke his leg trying to get in here to see if it was true. Eventually it died down. I haven't heard about it since half-way through last year."

"Slow down, bro. It's not like everything in it is true. For one, it said there were four students. But there are five very distinct models right here and there was probably a sixth person manning the computer." Erick said coolly, too fascinated by the huge coincidence and the discovery too really give much thought to details. Karina looked back at the screen and at the names and faces that were there. She frowned and tapped her chin for a moment. Something still felt off to her. . Some of those kids looked vaguely familiar, and she half-listened to Erick's tale. She'd seen a few of these kids. Not in person, she would have remembered that. But somewhere...

"Dude, if there's a highly advanced computer, powered by a nuclear reactor, under an abandoned factory, that could, be possessed by a virus with a vendetta. I'm not taking any chances." Daniel unplugged his computer USB and ran towards the reactor room.

"Daniel no!" She shouted, hearing the tail end of their argument. She chased after him and stood in front of the computer. "Please! If what Erick says is true, I want to try this thing out. I don't know about you, but my real life sucks. My parents hate me, I'm invisible to everyone at school even though I've been going here for a few years..." A light bulb flickered in her head. "Years... YEARS! THAT'S IT!" She dug around in her bag and pulled out last year's yearbook. She flipped through it and found what she wanted. "Erick!" She called as the boy hadn't followed them.

"Karina! Listen to yourself! If that legend IS true, you'd be risking thousands of lives, because your life sucks." Daniel shoved her out of the way, and laid a hand on the switch "OW! THE HECK WAS THAT?!" strange, purplish electricity was covering the power switch. The fizzling electricity wasn't going away anytime soon, Daniel backed away from it, "Well, it looks like we don't have a choice at this point..." Karina stared up at him in shock, when he had shoved her she'd fallen and her yearbook had skidded across the room. Erick had entered the room right when Daniel had shoved Karina.

"You'd better watch yourself, Daniel. I don't take kindly to what you just did." He warned, clenching his teeth and resisting the urge to lash out at Danial as he walked past his fellow student to help Karina to her feet. He reached down and took her hand, pulling her up with one tug. "You okay?" He asked, though he was almost certain she was, "What is it you wanted to show me?"

"I'm fine Karina said quietly. She walked over to her yearbook and picked it up, barely glancing up when Daniel walked over to her. He reviewed his actions, up to the point of him forcing Karina out of the way, and bowed his head.

"I- I apologize, the way I acted towards you was inappropriate, I pray you will accept my apology." He said, regret laced his voice.

"It's okay," Karina said. "Let's go back to the monitor, so I can show you." She led the way up the ladder, threatening both boys with death if they looked up. She reached the screen and held her yearbook out, showing the senior class of last year. Erick looked at the pictures Karina was pointing at and his jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

"Are you cheesin' me? That Ulrich Stern guy looks just like the ninja dude on the computer. And Odd Della Robbia looks like the cat dude." Erick looked from the yearbook to the screen several times and rubbed his eyes to make sure they weren't playing tricks on him. Karina nodded.

"They had a few more friends, I remember now, and look," she pointed at the screen. "The names all match."

"And these guys graduated last year?" He asked, his mind was now officially blown.

"Mmmm…" Karina said nodding. She plopped down in the chair and started typing. "I think those tubes down below are some sort of scanner," she said looking through an assortment of documents. The computer in the other room was beginning to sound an alarm, and all three teens covered their ears.

"Tower detected? The heck is that supposed to be?" Daniel asked over the noise. A whirring noise below them startled them all as the alarm died down. On the screen a red light still flashed and the round table beside them suddenly projected a hologram. Karina looked from the screen to the hologram and pulled up something that was blinking at the edge of the page. "Launch sequence?" Daniel said reading over her shoulder. "Y'know what? Fine, let's do this, don't know about you guys, but it wouldn't do to leave this virus to its work. You aid those things below s are scanners right?" He started down the ladder in the corner of the room. "C'mon now, we might as well dive head first into this while we're here!" He disappeared and left Karina gaping at him.

"I don't even know how this works!" She yelled after him. The dumbfounded Erick stared blankly at the wall, trying to piece together everything in his mind. After several moments of silences from him, he inhaled deeply and popped his knuckles and neck.

"If they went in and everything turned out okay, then so can we." He said determinedly, "Let's do this!" Then he too disappeared. "Uhh. How do we start this thing?" He asked, "Do you just tell it to? Like, shout 'computer, start' or something?" Apparently there were microphones in the scanner tubes because Karina could hear them perfectly.

"Ummm," she muttered. She started typing, trying to do something. Something prompted her to run a program and against her better decision, she did. She heard a hiss like noise and then heard the boys yelp and she leaped from her chair and down the ladder. By the time she got there, the tubes had opened again and neither boy was to be seen. She hightailed it back to the monitor in time to hear a series of short screams followed by groans of pain from the headpiece beside the keyboard. Karina picked it up and stared at the screen.

"Karina?" She heard Erick ask.

"Yeah, I hear you guys loud and clear," Karina said. "So why were you screaming?" She asked with a grin as she began to look through things, trying to figure out what to do.

"Shut up," she heard Daniel growl. He took the time to look down at his clothing and found himself in very mage-like attire, a tattered cloak with a hood, in his hand was a long wooden rod. He noticed the rod had a red, a green, a blue, a light blue, and a brown crystal floating around the top of the staff.

"So what's it like there?" Karina asked finally managing to get a screen up with two green blips that were labeled as Erick and Daniel. There were several tiny red blips heading towards them. "So, in my usual gaming experience green is good and red," she said to them. "So, if that's the case here, you guys have some enemies approaching."

"You know, I feel so relieved that you're there," Daniel said sarcastically while looking around him. A scene straight out of science fiction had unfolded before him and Erick. Huge islands of stone and jagged "mountains" floated in the grey sky all around him. "This is pretty cool," he said right before a bug looking creature came out from behind a rock, several more right behind it.

"Are these things what you mean Karina?" Erick asked watching the bug thing warily, barely dodging a red laser that it shot at them. "I take that as a yes." He muttered ducking behind a rock. He also took the time to check out his new gear. He was some sort of ninja, judging by the hood, mask, and tunic. Leather bracers were bound about his wrists by cloth strips and grey wrappings covered his hands and fingers. He had baggy pants on that were stuff into black leather greaves that went up to his knees. He wore tightly fitting shoes of the same black leather and beneath his tunic he could feel the weight of a chainmail vest. He also had hard caldrons on his shoulders and tight leather bands on his biceps. He reached behind him and found that there was also a sword secured to his back. His fingers wrapped around the grip and he drew the sword from its sheath. It was a simple Gin sword, by the look of it and its black blade gave off a cold aura.

"Yeah, the stat card says they're called Kankrelots," Karina said. She typed a few things and pulled up Erick and Daniel's own stat cards. "You guys have these stat card things as well," she said, she could hear them both fighting the Kankrelots, and hoped that they would know what to do. "Oh hey you guys also have this thing called a Mega Tank coming your way too." She could tell that Erick and Daniel were two different style fighters just by what she could hear. She could hear Daniel laughing and yelling in joy, but got mostly silence from Erick.

"Would the Mega Tank thing be a round sphere?" She heard Erick ask.

"Can someone get the number of that truck?" She heard Daniel ask right after he lost ten life points.

"Yeah, that would be it," Karina said looking at its stat card.

"Great," Erick muttered as he took off at a run towards the dark sphere. He drew back his sword as he ran and rammed it into the left wheel of the thing as its eye began to glow. The force of himself and his sword hitting it turned the thing aside, but Erick's sword simply bounced off its hard surface. The thing, with its shot already charged up, fired, releasing a massive disk-like wall of red plasma. The wall expanded like a ripple from the eye and surged at least twenty yards in every direction before receding back into the eye. "Get off your face, Daniel, and help me take this thing out! My sword's not doing a thing!" Erick roared as he hacked and slashed at the metallic wheel of the tank.

Daniel stood up and mumbled to himself "Now, if my theory is correct..." He shot a bolt of ice from his rod and watched the ball-like creature attempt to charge up another blast, but was halted by the creeping ice, which soon consumed its entire body. Daniel kicked it off of the "path" and watched a pillar of light signaling its demise. Daniel watched as two more hornets flew up from under the floating path, "Hmm..." he held up his wand and watched the green crystal illuminate, a small tornado whipped the hornet into an uncontrollable spin. Further reducing, it's already horrible aim, it shot off multiple shots, as if in a hopeless thought it could hit him. Daniel laughed, and wondered to himself, "What if I did this?" he lit up two of the jewels, one of fire and one of water, he created an intense cloud of steam, "Well, that didn't do what I hoped for..." He summoned a small tornado and watched it whip up the steam. "Hmm..." he said with a sly grin, the air and fire crystals lit up, and a tornado of fire was before him. "HAHAHAHAHHA! THIS IS AMAZING!" he swung the flaming vortex and watched the hornet disintegrate, "Can I do three?" he concentrated and attempted to create a tornado of water, and he threw it at the other hornet and froze it over. Watching the creature fall into the digital sea. "This, now this is power!" he said while raising himself up on a small plate of rock. "Erick! This is awesome!" he said while floating around on his stone plate.

"If you're quite done playing," Karina muttered over Daniel's excited yelling. Man, if Belpois knew how to work this he was smarter than I gave him credit for." She tapped her chin, she was still trying to figure out how to work everything. It did explain all the missed computer club meetings. She started typing and looked through all the programs and found a folder labeled "Jeremy Belpois Video Diary" and she burst out laughing. Hopefully he had mentioned how to work everything.

"Don't get too caught up, Daniel. We still don't know what else is out here, where these things are coming from, or why they're trying to kill us!" Erick shouted. He charged at a blocky creature with spindly legs, ducking and dive away from its lasers and ice beams. With a yell, he jumped up and landed on top of the creature before flipping his sword and ramming its black blade into the creature's eye. "What's so funny?" He asked hearing Karina laugh.

"Maybe this is just a video game? Albeit an extremely realistic one, but still a videogame. Because this feels strangely similar to all of the FPS survival modes I've played." Daniel said, effectively ignoring Karina. Another mega-tank rolled around the corner, Daniel flung another ice crystal at it, it missed and he watched as it charged up a blast. Daniel barely dodged the disk of energy. Daniel threw the orb and it knocked the mega-tank back a bit, "The eye looks like its weak point... Hmm..." Daniel raised up a chunk of earth, and shattered it. The fire gem lit up as the earth caught aflame. He hurled the storm of flaming earth and watched as it simply ricocheted off of the mega-tanks' shell. "Well that didn't do crap." The mega-tank charged up a shot, it fired the burst of energy at Daniel and he dodged it again, Daniel watched it revert to its ball form, it barreled towards Daniel, he waited at the edge of the "path" and watched it charge towards him, at the last few moments, he dove away from the mega-tank's path, and watched it fall off of the edge. "One thing's for sure, the AI's on these things need to learn how to stop." he laughed to himself.

"You know," Karina started. "Perhaps you could I don't know, use your staff sometimes?" She rolled her eyes as she looked over his stat card. "You only have a certain amount of that energy stuff and you're almost done with it." She paused before typing a few things again, still going through everything. "Also, I was laughing at nothing. I promise, just trying to figure this thing out." She typed a few words and the computer started a search. "The few things I have learned though are topped with, you guys suck." A loud alarm went off and Karina covered her ears. She looked over to see the hologram start a scan. "That is so not what I meant to do," she groaned, but stopped as a tower looking object showed up on the hologram, glowing in red. "Well... Maybe that's a good thing..."

"What do you mean we suck!? I'd like to see you try this!" Erick yelled back, barely avoiding another shot from the last remaining Blok. "Screw this! Daniel! Give me some cover fire!" He yelled as he charged at the creature. Shards of ice zipped past his head and pelted the Blok as it was charging another shot. The thing fired and missed by a longshot just before Erick got there. With an angry cry, he rammed his sword into the eye in the center of the creature. The thing cracked and shuddered before exploding into thousands of tiny shards. "Now... What in the blue blazes are we supposed to do here?! There's no menu, no pause, not even a power button! What idiot makes a video game like this?" Erick fumed.

"Duh," Karina looked to the side, at the hologram. "You find the tower. I'm not sure what you do once there, but that's what this computer keeps indicating."

 _ ***S***_

Elsewhere, at his apartment closer to the heart of Paris, a certain former Kadic Academy student was frozen with fear and confusion. He never thought he would hear that sound again. Jeremy Belpois dropped the hand-held machine he was working on and ran to his room. He threw open the closet and pulled a metal brief case from the back of the highest shelf. A loud alarm was blaring from within. Quickly, he set the case on his bed and punched in the code on the keypad lock. The case opened and Jeremy took the laptop computer out and opened it up. Large, red, flashing letters spelled out the very words he feared: Tower Activated

"Oh no..." He breathed.

 _ ***S***_

 _ **And that is the end of chapter two! What did you guys really think we wouldn't involve the original characters? Anyway, thank for all of you wonderful readers. Please feel free to leave a review and if you like this please go check out FeralFront and its sister site Xanje.**_

 _ **Shimmerz (Never Forget)**_


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